This invention relates to a novel multiple position switch. More particularly, this invention concerns a joy stick type switch, which in one of its uses is particularly suited for use with an electronic game watch, of the kind disclosed in a co-pending patent application assigned to the assignee of the present application and of which the applicant is a co-inventor, having a Ser. No. 270,314, filed on June 4, 1981. In such use the size constraints dictated by the size of the housing containing the electronic game and display, in that instance a wrist watch, make the switch of the present invention particularly suitable.
In the past it has been known, as shown in the above-referenced patent application, to incorporate electronic games in very small packages, e.g., a wrist watch housing, with the face of the wrist watch having a particularly suited liquid crystal diode (LCD) display which is controlled by a programmed data processor contained within the, e.g., watch housing, and by player input through various buttons on the watch housing. It has also been known to employ a so-called joy stick for input to electronically controlled games, e.g., of the arcade game variety or of the variety played on a home television screen, e.g., the "Atari".TM. video games. In these instances the joy stick may be of a rather large variety, as it is either mounted on a large game chassis or on a hand-held unit which itself comprises a joy stick alone, or perhaps the joy stick with some other player control input buttons. Other types of player control inputs which perform the function of a so-called joy stick are also known in the art, e.g., the disc-shaped switch used in the "Intelevision".TM. home video game, made by Mattel, in which depressing the rim of the disc at a selected location about the rim depresses one of a plurality of pressure operated switches positioned beneath the rim of the disc.
In the case of the arcade game type switches, the movement of the joy stick about a neutral axis selectively activates one of a plurality of switches which are normally spring-loaded to the open position. In the case of the "Atari" joy stick, swiveling the joy stick about a neutral axis selectively depresses a respective one of the plurality of pressure-operated switches, e.g., dome-type switches due to the action of a disc-shaped member at the lower end of the joy stick and a plurality of springs depending from the underside of the disc. Such dome switches can be of the type manufactured by Texas Instruments, and commonly used in hand-held calculators on the market today. The dome switch generally comprises a concave piece of thin metal which makes contact at its periphery with a lead on a printed circuit board (PCB) and has a protrusion at its apex, which when depressed against the resilient biasing of the metal material, by pressing, e.g., a respective one of the buttons on a hand-held calculator, makes electrical contact with another lead on the PCB.
It is also known to use a joy stick, which is mounted in a double gimble arrangement, having a means for generating an X-Y coordinate signal, which is representative of the position to which the joy stick is swivelled off of a neutral axis, by sensing the change of position of the joy stick on its X axis gimble and the change of position of the joy stick on its X axis gimble.
Such joy sticks known in the art have certain limitations to which the present invention is directed to solving. By way of example, the gimble joy stick, which typically uses potentiometers to sense the change in position along the X and Y axes, suffers from the defect of having to zero the potentiometers on occasion, or else the neutral axis position of the joy stick would not be a zero output position for either or both of the X and Y potentiometers. The joy sticks of the prior art are generally bulky and difficult to manufacture, and except for the gimble arrangement discussed above, require a plurality of spring-loaded switches which must generally be separately manufactured and incorporated into the joy stick switch. Further, the joy sticks, except for those of the type used in the "Atari".TM. games, are very unsuited for making direct contact between two printed leads on, e.g., a PCB, as are commonly used in microprocessors or other large scale integrated circuit data processing equipment. The "Atari".TM. type joy sticks are not well suited for miniaturization due to limits on how small a dome switch can be made. In addition, the joy sticks of the prior art are particularly unsuited for operation by use of a single finger. Such operation, for example, would be required with the wrist watch game described in the above-noted patent application, in order to control the joy stick while leaving other fingers on the same hand free to manipulate other game buttons, when only one hand is available, due to the wrist watch game remaining on one wrist of the game player.
The problems enumerated in the foregoing are not intended to be exhaustive, but rather are among many which tend to impair the effectiveness of previously known multiple position switches. Other noteworthy problems may also exist; however, those presented above should be sufficient to demonstrate that the multiple position switches appearing in the art have not been all together satisfactory.
While such arrangements as described above as existing in the prior art exhibit a degree of utility in the art of multiple position switches, room for significant improvement remains. Recognizing the need for an improved multiple position switch, it is, therefore, a general feature of the present invention to provide a novel multiple position switch which minimizes or reduces the problems of the type previously noted. It is another feature of the present invention that the multiple position switch of the present invention is particularly adapted for application where the switch must be very small in size in comparison to the joy stick multiple position switches existing in the art. It is an additional feature of the present invention to make a joy stick which is easy to manufacture and has a minimum of moving parts.
It is a further feature of the present invention that the switch of the present invention is particularly suited for selectively making contact between pairs of printed circuit board leads printed on the surface of the printed circuit board.
A multiple position switch according to a presently preferred embodiment of the invention, intended to substantially accomplish the foregoing, includes a plurality of contacts on a surface, e.g., of a PCB, a conductor, mounted on a piece of resilient material which rests on the surface, with the conductor being spaced apart from the surface and the contacts on the surface by being contained in a hollowed-out portion of the resilient material, and having a swivelingly mounted joy stick, the joy stick having a plurality of urging members positioned radially outward from the longitudinal axis of the joy stick, corresponding in position to the position of the respective contacts on the PCB.